Southern California -- this just in

Kim Kardashian told to 'pay up' by group seeking tax on wealthy

January 4, 2012 | 12:52
pm

This post has been corrected, as indicated below.

Money? Kim Kardashian appears to have plenty of that. Paying taxes? Not so much.

So says the Courage Campaign, an online organization trying to drum up support support for a November ballot measure that would raise taxes on the wealthiest Californians — the so-called millionaire tax.

Kardashian, whose oversized wedding and short-lived marriage kept her firmly in the spotlight last summer, made roughly $12 million in 2010, yet paid a tax rate only slightly higher than what an average Joe earning $47,000 would pay, the group claims in a YouTube video.

"Not everyone was born a Kardashian, but we all need to pay our fair share," the video says, as images of Kardashian enjoying the uber-good life roll by.

The video opens with Kardashian looking coyly into the camera and saying: “Being on TV has changed my life, because you get lots of free stuff.”

The Courage Campaign and the California Federation of Teachers are among the groups backing the ballot measure that would raise income tax rates by three to five percentage points for individuals who make more than $1 million a year.

Proponents contend the tax would raise about $6 billion to help fund public schools and local services that have been hit hard during the recession, such as social services, programs for the elderly and public safety.

A spokeswoman for Kardashian did not respond to a request for comment, the Boston Herald reported.

[For the record, 1:58 p.m. Jan. 5: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that the Courage Campaign reported that Kardashian had paid an amount of taxes similar to a person who earned $47,000 in a year. As this corrected version notes, she paid a tax rate similar to a person who earned $47,000 a year.]